Creating a network FC3 and FC4

[A6quattro]

I have recently switched over my XP boxes to Fedora. I did a full install on each machine because space was not an issue. I wanted to make sure I had whatever component I needed. Before the switch I had a small workgroup set up of 6 XP Pro machines. Now it is 2 XP and 4 Linux.

I would like to be able to do video encoding (DVD-avi) with clustered linux boxes if possible.

The network is behind a Linksys router (DHCP disabled), which runs to a 8port gigabit switch. I assign all computers Static IP's.

I have a couple questions.
1) I would like to know how to go about either creating a new "workgroup" or do I have to create a domain for linux? If I have to create a domain, I guess I have to make one of my machies a Domain server.?.

2) I used to have 4 200GB drives on one of my XP machines that was pretty much a fileserver. It had my music, movies, downloads and app's on it. So, I now have 4 NTFS drives full of data and would like to put them on the network. I guess I would like to know the best way to set up a fileserver.

3) Can the same user be logged into each computer? ex. can username: John be logged into each box at one time or will the network only allow one instance of a user on the network at a time?

4) I would like to set up a web server as well. Should I worry about security with this? maybe place this behind the router/firewall, and have the rest of the network behind another router?


Here are the PC's that are available, it really makes no difference which is used for what purpose (to me at least) so suggestions are welcome as to which is best suited for what role.

1) AMD 3200 64bit, 2 Gb Pc3200, WD Raptor 36GB, MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum MOBO,Dual Gb onboard NICS
2) P4, 2.6 1Gb Pc3200, WD Raptor 74GB, Albatron 865PE-Pro2MOBO, 100mb nic, 1gb Nic
3) P4, 2.53 512 Pc3200, WD Raptor 36GB, MSI 865PE-PROII-Neo2 MOBO, 100mb nic
I have 1 Linux and 2 XP workstations as well but they are already "in use"


I have not added my extra HD's to my machines yet. I figured I'd get them up and running before I would throw a foreign filesystem in the mix. At present I need to incorperate the following drives:
(4) 200GB WD IDE
(1) 160GB WD IDE
(2) 120GB WD IDE
(1) 74GB Raptor SATA

i know this is a lot but I though I would give as much infor as possible to help figure this out. Any guidance or advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[kg4cbk]

Do you want to be able to browse files on the windows systems from the linux boxes or the other way around? samba can be used to allow windows systems to access files on your linux systems. You can also setup /etc/fstab to mount shares from your windows systems on the linux boxes.

If you want to share files between linux boxes you should look at using NFS.

You can configure samba to act as a domain controller if you like. However you may want to simply confgure user level shares.

If you want to use the NTFS file systems on a linux box I recommend you figure out how to transfer the data from those drives and reformat using EXT3 type file systems. Mounting NTFS file systems under linux, while possible, comes with several caveats. As I understand it you can read NTFS file systems but write capability is limited. As such transfering your data to EXT3 fiile systems would be easier to deal with.

A user can be logged into multiple servers at one time no problem.

Security should always be a concern. The setup you describe is typical for major commercial sites and is a good way to do it if you have the equipment. You should harden the webserver as much as possible and implement tripwire. Be careful of the packages you run on your system. IMHO things like phpBB and postnuke should be avoided. Monitor your log files and run rkhunter and chkrootkit periodically.

If possible block out going ports/protocols except for those that you need.

[A6quattro]

Thanks for the advice. I think what I would like to do is set up a Linux Fileserver with EXT3 partitioning ( i guess). I'm guessing I can transfer the files over the network.from an XP Machine to the new Fileserver (with the newly formated EXT3 drives)

I know that in XP, I mapped to drives on the network, is this possible on linux? from Linux workstation to the Linux Fileserver, and from Xp to the linux fileserver?

[kg4cbk]

You may also want to use LVM when setting up the file system on your linux server. This will allow you to add additional space to the file system when needed. Not required but can be useful later on.

Yes you will be easly able to transfer your data over the network.

Linux to linux you should use NFS to mount file systems over a network. You can use samba to setup windows type shares that windows systems can connect to.